Oldest beer - world recordset
by a 200-year-old beer Aland Islands, Finland -- Divers salvaged a handful
of beer bottles from a shipwreck believed to be about 200
years old - which setsthe new world record for theOldest
beer.

Photo: Divers have discovered beer believed
to be over 200 years old on a shipwreck in the Baltic sea.
AP photo(enlarge
photo)

"We believe these are by far the world's
oldest bottles of beer," Rainer Juslin, a spokesman for the
local government of Aaland, said in a statement.

The beer bottles were unearthed from a shipwreck
believed to be about 200 years old -- as divers were recovering
bottles of what is thought to be the world's oldest drinkable
champagne, discovered in July.

Until now, the title for theoldest
drinkable beerever to have been found was some Ratcliff
Ale brewed in 1869, discovered in the vaults of the Worthington
White Shield Brewery in Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire,
England, in 2006, the Sonomat said.

"This is much likely theworld's
oldest beer. We can now say that we have both theworld's oldest champagne and theworld's
oldest beer bottlesin our possession," Rainer Juslin
of Aland's provincial government told the Stockholm News.

The cold temperature and darkness on the sea
have optimized the storage, and pressure in the bottles has
prevented any salt water getting in through the corks, the
News said.

All the cargo on the ship -- including the
beer and champagne -- is believed to have been transported
sometime between 1800 and 1830, according to Juslin. He said
the wreck was about 50 meters deep (roughly 164 feet) in between
the Aland island chain and Finland.

The cargo was aboard a ship believed to be heading
from Copenhagen, Denmark, to St Petersburg, Russia. It could
have possibly been sent by France's King Louis XVI to the
Russian Imperial Court.

Aaland, a semi-autonomous province of Finland,
legally owns the contents of the wreck, but has yet to determine
what to do with the beer. Subscribe to ourRSS
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